Lebanon news - NOW Lebanon -Fourteen centuries of Lebanon
William Harris, professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand and sometimes NOW Lebanon contributor, is one of the premier contemporary historians of Lebanon. Author of other highly acclaimed books on Lebanon and the Levant, his latest, Lebanon: A History, 600-2011, was published in July by Oxford University Press. NOW spoke to Professor Harris about his book and the situation in Syria and Lebanon.
Before we discuss your book, let's start off with current events. Where do you see the Syrian revolt heading?William Harris: The regime evidently cannot crush the uprising, and so the affair will go on until the former ultimately collapses—whatever the destruction along the way. Like Nazi Germany by late 1943, the regime retains formidable capacity but is almost certainly doomed. Too much blood has flowed in Syria for the internal opposition to accept anything less than the total reformulation of the state. Deliberate, systematic regime abuse of millions of Syrians has removed "dialogue" from the table.
In contrast, when you hear the expression "peaceful transition," you can infer the scenario that would gratify the West, satisfy Russia, and forestall potential annoyance for President Obama's election campaign. An authoritative defector would take charge of the political opposition, regime elements would depose the Assads, and parts of the security machine would be certified "clean" to offer "stability." However, the Syrian opposition is probably too pluralist to be corralled by any such scheme—political fragmentation does occasionally have its advantages.
How do you think the restructuring of Syria's sectarian balance will impact Lebanon?Harris: If there is a new pluralist regime in Syria and a real break from the old order by early next year, the mainly Sunni new leadership in Damascus will find it difficult to forgive those in Lebanon who sided with Bashar al-Assad. This would make the Miqati government unviable and would strongly influence voting in the 2013 parliamentary elections. Christians in particular would go with the trend of events, tipping the national balance decisively against the March 8 alignment.
What about Hezbollah?Harris: Assuming a new Syrian regime is hostile toward Iran, Hezbollah will be more constrained. If it shows imagination in its political relations and its adjustment to circumstances, it will be able to maintain its position in a large part of the Shiite community because it reflects Shiite concerns and insecurity. Even so, there will probably be erosion of Hezbollah's Shiite support base as people adapt to new realities of power, and the party's minority status in the country and location in a single community would be uncomfortably emphasized. It will face more forceful demands about its private weaponry and it will have to be careful about deflecting attention in the direction of Israel because of poor assurance of weapons resupply and the weariness of much of its constituency.
Your work on the Frankish (Crusader) period has influenced my thinking on Syria. That period had an important imprint on Syria's sectarian communities. However, unlike Lebanon, Syria did not have a history of institutionalized communal politics. The corrosion of the Assad regime today could well lead to the fragmentation of the country, which, curiously, might resemble the 12th-13th century political-sectarian map, including an Aleppan region in the north under Turkish influence, an enclave in the coastal mountains, and so on. Do you see it that way?Harris: What you say is certainly possible, but I doubt that fragmentation of Syria could be long sustained. It would cost Iran and Russia hugely to keep an Alawite coastal mini-state afloat, and there would be zero chance of international legitimacy. Regime loss of the interior cities would also be the loss of most Christians and the Druze—more than half of the minorities. The regime will therefore exert everything to maintain itself in Damascus and Aleppo; if it slides in Damascus it may fall apart quickly with Alawites looking to make their deals with the opposition.
I am not convinced by the Lebanese analogy—Lebanon's 15 years of wars were in the different environment of the Cold War, of resource injections and Lebanese diaspora networks that do not apply to the same extent in the present Syrian situation, and multiple foreign military interventions unlikely in Syria. Turkey might conceivably get embroiled in the north, which would give Prime Minister Erdoğan an urgent interest in enabling the opposition to tip over the regime. The Iranian regime lacks access and would pay dearly for an adventure; unlike Lebanon Syria has a serious Sunni Arab majority and the bulk of this majority has come to hate Iran with a steadily deepening passion.
In your new book, you identify the Frankish period as a critical period for the consolidation of the main sectarian communities in Mount Lebanon. It is the period right before the Mamluk and then Ottoman periods when the immediate antecedent of modern Lebanon emerged. How is the Frankish period important?Harris: If the Seljuk Turks had managed a restoration of Sunni Islamic hegemony in the Levant around 1100, pushing back the Ismaili Shiite Fatimids and not disturbed by the First Crusade, things might have gone badly for the Twelver Shiites, Druze and Alawites in particular. The creation of the Frankish principalities along the coast guaranteed a lengthy geopolitical fragmentation of the region, which allowed the sectarian communities to consolidate free of existential challenges. The Maronites received the boost of connection with Rome and the Christian West, even though some Maronites were unenthusiastic. The Twelver Shiites consolidated in Jabal Amil under the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem, and were largely left to their own affairs. The Druze were able to maneuver in no-man's land between Frankish and Muslim principalities, mostly but not always loyal to the latter. By the time the Mamluks finally established a firm new Sunni Muslim grip on the Levant coast by the 1290s, the sectarian communities were much more solidly entrenched than in 1100. The main Mamluk contribution was to make Tripoli and Beirut once more majority Sunni towns and to introduce Sunni Turcoman settlers, if anything diversifying the overall mix.
As you show in your book, the Lebanese sects' identities have a long history of development before the Ottoman period. What is the difference between the early communal identities and the later politicized sectarian identities? Did the early Lebanese communities think of themselves as sects and act collectively as such?Harris: There was no concept of a sectarian community as a political stage or entity before the early 19th century. From before the Frankish period, however, there was collective identity and the sense of being distinctive in some cultural markers (festivals, famous personalities, origin stories, and suchlike). We know about the identities because both the medieval Arabic and Frankish chronicles identify the communal groups of Mount Lebanon.
Collective action did not go beyond occasional mobilization of part of a community by some chiefs—Maronites as "Marada" against the Tanukhs near Beirut in Abbasid times, the followers of the Druze Buhturs in defense against the Franks, and Shiites and Alawites in the Keserwan resisting the Mamluks.
You view the informal Ottoman principality of Mount Lebanon as a unique phenomenon, and in that you disagree with historians like Kamal Salibi, for instance, who thought it was no different from other contemporary local autonomies. Why is your view on the nature of the principality important, and what are its implications?Harris: Mount Lebanon's administrative arrangements may not have been unusual, but the character of the mountain, its external connections, and the working-out of its local politics all were unusual. The persistence of the leading role of the Maan/Shihab emirs for a quarter millennium made it unique among such Ottoman arrangements. At the outset in the early 17th century, Fakhr al-Din Maan contributed a multi-sectarian elite interaction that gave a special flavor to Mount Lebanon's affairs. Standard tax farming framed a Maronite/Druze/Sunni/Twelver Shiite interplay that was highly distinctive—so standard packaging, unique content. I am not sure that Kamal would disagree with a nuanced formulation.
Interpreting the informal principality as unique or not bears on modern Lebanon's legitimacy as an entity with distinctive indigenous historical roots in bilad al-sham (geographical Syria). Does Lebanon have a historical basis for its existence that pre-dates the late Ottoman special province and the French interventions? It is worth noting that as early as 1519 we have a record of Druze chiefs in late Mamluk times conceiving a "principality of Mount Lebanon" (imarat jabal lubnan). This was not quite the same as Bashir II's entity and the special province more than three centuries later, but the terminology was already there. It was a Druze patent, and the Druze chiefs inaugurated an evolution that, through various contingencies and interventions, produced modern Lebanon.
While you agree that the notion of a sectarian community as a political platform arose in the mid-19th century, you nevertheless argue that modern Lebanon didn't simply emerge out of the blue, and that it has deeper historical roots. In the process, you take issue with another view in American academia on the origins of Lebanon's sectarian politics, which views it less as an indigenous evolution and more as the result of European meddling. Can you explain how your book's thesis diverges from the opposing view? Harris: I think it is a matter of emphasis. I don't dispute the role of consuls and other European interventions in consolidating sectarian politics after 1840. However I believe there already was a strong momentum toward sectarian political assertion before 1840, with the Maronites as the main dynamic element. This relates in part to the relentless Maronite and Christian demographic and territorial advance in Mount Lebanon from the 16th century onward, which was bound to have destabilizing effects. It also relates to the destabilizing behavior of Bashir II Shihab, who made a real mountain principality by the 1820s. Bashir II took apart the old Druze mountain elite, promoted the Maronite Church, and provoked the Maronite peasantry into collective action. His posture encouraged Maronites to view the de facto principality as their patrimony, and avowedly sectarian Maronite/Druze friction was almost inevitable.
Lastly, you have written extensively about and in defense of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the importance of justice for Lebanon. How do you read the recent arrest of Michel Samaha?Harris: For those of us who have always strongly suspected that the Syrian regime organized the 2005-2008 political murder series in Lebanon, the exposure of Michel Samaha and his Syrian regime overlords—caught "in flagrante delicto"—is vindication.
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